Reformat & Defrag

Hi Guys,,

Is it bad if you always reformat your flash drive and hard drives? How about if you always defrag them?

s7ven,

richc46 said:

Welcome
Anything to excess will cause wear.
Excessive defrag is frowned upon. It should be done when you have about 10% fragmented. Windows 7, will give that information, when you start a defrag. Defrag is only needed after excessive installing and/or uninstalling as it creates gaps on the HD
Formatting

There is no need for excessive formatting, which is usually done with a new OS install.

i reformat my hd probably every 3 mos.. when i feel it becomes slower.. i defrag almost every week.. and my flash drives. i reformat them when i want to delete all of their contents.

richc46 said:

That much defrag is not helping,but probably wearing out your hard drive
Formatting that much is not helping, but wearing out the drive.
You want to speed the computer this is what you do
Suggestions for Proper Maintenance

thanks.. i will stop defragging my hd now. how about the quick reformat for flash drives? someone told me that's not harmful at all.

s7ven said:

thanks.. i will stop defragging my hd now. how about the quick reformat for flash drives? someone told me that's not harmful at all.

Flash drives do not have unlimited writes before they just plain wear out. Usually without notice. Formatting basically erases everything on a drive. Once the drive is erased new data is usually written to it. Formatting is not as "write intensive" as defragging and should be safer.

Don't defrag a flash drive. Defragging involves moving files around so they're more contiguous (closer together). Every time a file is moved it has to be re-written at least twice. Once to a holding area until a space is cleared next to its companion files and then again to place it next to those companion files.

The problem with formatting and defragging is no one knows exactly when a flash drive will wear out. It could be 100,000 writes, 10,000 writes, or something in between.

Don't Defrag Your Flash Drive! - WorldStart Computer Tips and Computer Help

marsmimar said:

s7ven said:

thanks.. i will stop defragging my hd now. how about the quick reformat for flash drives? someone told me that's not harmful at all.

Flash drives do not have unlimited writes before they just plain wear out. Usually without notice. Formatting basically erases everything on a drive. Once the drive is erased new data is usually written to it. Formatting is not as "write intensive" as defragging and should be safer.

Don't defrag a flash drive. Defragging involves moving files around so they're more contiguous (closer together). Every time a file is moved it has to be re-written at least twice. Once to a holding area until a space is cleared next to its companion files and then again to place it next to those companion files.

The problem with formatting and defragging is no one knows exactly when a flash drive will wear out. It could be 100,000 writes, 10,000 writes, or something in between.

Don't Defrag Your Flash Drive! - WorldStart Computer Tips and Computer Help

thank you.